Monthly Archives: June 2016

Whilst at University, I, like many, viewed my career options upon graduation as falling broadly into one of two camps: Hospital or Community. I was vaguely aware of other career paths for pharmacists in different sectors but with industrial pre-registration placements so scarce and with no idea about the other roles for pharmacists I decided to apply for hospital pharmacy. I had no idea that a year later I’d be a qualified pharmacist working primarily in the field of marketing, an area I hadn’t even considered at the time.

Management is not just about managing people, it includes your day to day work, meeting objectives in your appraisals or managing processes and projects. To some degree, everyone has some experience in these areas.

The organisation that you work for will have its’ own standard of practice. For example, key performance indicators, such as the target time that medicines reconciliation must be completed. I found that understanding the development descriptors was key to mapping competencies correctly. Read more Identifying Management to help build your Faculty portfolio ›

The nation was shocked by the Panorama expose of cruel behaviour to people with a learning disability living at Winterbourne View in Bristol. The subsequent enquiry not only raised many concerns about the care of people with a learning disability but also about the use of antipsychotics and antidepressants.

Subsequent investigations and actions took two paths. The first, a series of studies demonstrated widespread use of many categories of psychotropic drugs often in combinations. In addition there was widespread use of PRN psychotropic drugs. The second was NICE guidelines relating to aspects of treatment of people with a learning disability.
Stopping Over-medication of People with Learning Disabilities (STOMPLD) 2016 is a campaign launched by Alistair Burt today. It aims to improve the quality of life of people with a learning disability, by reducing the harm of inappropriate psychotropic drugs which are used as a “chemical restraint” in place of other more appropriate care and treatments. Read more Stop the over medication of people with learning disabilities ›

About the RPS blog

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is the dedicated professional body for pharmacists and pharmacy in England, Scotland and Wales.

Our blogs are written by experts and provide thought provoking information and commentary on health, health policy issues and lifestyle choices. Here you will find opinions and comments on topics related to public health and medicine safety.

We work with a variety of health, charity and business partners to help us highlight particular health issues and run successful health campaigns. We will be inviting guest bloggers from these organisations to help us create interesting, varied and engaging public content.